


Snow Signals

by Eastling (Annwyd)



Category: Fate/EXTRA
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5543621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annwyd/pseuds/Eastling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stubborn by nature, Saber ventures forth into the depths of the Moon Cell to find her deleted Master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Signals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corinthian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/gifts).



As a creation of the Moon Cell, Saber knows what "snow" is. It's _noise_. When the information of a signal degrades in a computer, what results is snow, flickering and dancing through the digital air. She understands this too well, in fact. It's easy for a beautiful idea, a glorious concept to lose its luster when submitted to the world for its appreciation. Doubt and misunderstanding creep in far too readily.

She knows this.

What she doesn't know is _snow_ , real snow. Rome was warm, and she never traveled to the far-flung reaches of her empire.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to her that the Moon Cell represents this distant reach of its expanse as a narrow, twining valley heaped with snow, with more falling and falling and falling from above. After all, this is where the noise goes: the degraded fragments of programs, the distorted data, the false signals that sprang up out of nothing. This is where it all goes when it's been caught and consigned to oblivion once more.

Her booted feet sink awkwardly into the wet white mass as she strides purposefully forward into the chilly labyrinth, where great walls of packed ice tower above her. She nearly trips, which is an unthinkable crime for the snow to perpetuate against her. "Ah! Such beauty and such treachery! This weather is very nearly a worthy opponent!"

She speaks into air thick with whirling white and nothing else. There is no one to hear her. Still, she throws her voice out into the muffled white world, refusing to be silenced. "Praetor, do you hear me? Perhaps not, but you will soon enough. It took me endless ages to find this place, but I am assured you are here." She strides forward again. "My love will pluck you from the wintry depths!"

As much as she hates to admit it, it's probably fortunate that her Master cannot see her here. She moves too clumsily in this soft not-ground, and she feels herself starting to shiver in the most ungainly fashion.

When she runs into her first monster, it's fiercer than she expected. A massive, hulking bear-like creature, glittering at the edges in its digital way. Her fingers are chilled and numb around her sword, but still she swings it defiantly at the beast. "Stand back, you puny creature of chills! You can't dream of stopping the power of my love!"

She defeats it. Of course she defeats it, but she's aching and trembling afterwards. She hasn't had enough mana in a long time, and she simply isn't used to the cold.

Her next opponent is small, a rabbit-like thing that would be fluffy if it weren't merely a programmed construct. She trips and stumbles when she tries to fight it, and it leaps up and savages her arms. In the end, she manages to slice it up until it shatters into nothing, but it's shamefully difficult for such a small creature.

She is cold, and she is weaker than she should be. But the bear-constructs come at her again; so do more of the rabbits, and weird-looking birds with hopelessly stubby wings but razor-sharp beaks.

"What happened to your wings?" she demands of the latter as she fights them, speaking in a desperate attempt to keep her lips from going numb. "Did you fly too close to the sun and burn them off? I understand! It would be worth it!" She swings her sword. "I too have flown too close to the sun of my Master's radiant determination and suffered for it, but I will be rewarded yet! Soon enough, I will become another star to join her, and burn away all this frost!"

Yet there is no end to the cold; the snow keeps falling, muffling all sound, obscuring all vision. Saber knows her Master is here. She must be; this is the last place she has to check.

After what must be miles upon miles of trudging through the generated snow, it finally happens. Saber's legs give out beneath her and pitch her forward into a bank of snow. She tries to yank herself out of it before her face freezes off, but her arms are too weak. In the end, she resorts to slowly digging her way out with numb fingers. She's sure her face is so red as to be unsightly when she finally drags herself out, and her legs are so weak she can't imagine standing.

She thinks of her Master, and she stands anyway, trembling. "Who thinks that this ice is a match for my fire?" She takes a step forward, slow and fumbling. "Who could possibly make that mistake? Surely, no being, analog or digital, could be so foolish!" Another step. It's not easy, but she hopes she makes it look easy. "Once, I might have been defeated here." Again, she moves forward. "When my heart was lost and weak despite its bright glow, a blazing candle in a sea of ignorance—when I sought love from an unconcerned populace." One more step; her whole body shakes. "My true feelings drowned in the falsehoods and trickeries of politics, then, and I was alone and weaker than I realized. But now—!"

One more step. Just one.

" _My love for you could swallow up the strongest blizzard in its burning embrace, Praetor!_ "

She falls into the snow, face-first, her arms outflung, and she lies still. She thinks, _This is it,_ but she refuses to say it. Numbness starts to overtake her. She has no warmth and no mana, even if she calls herself a blazing sun.

In the snow, she cannot hear footsteps. But instead she hears a small, resigned, familiar voice. "I should probably tell you that you can't embrace a blizzard. But I don't think you'll care."

Saber twitches.

"I should have known you'd come for me," Hakuno says from above her. She belongs here in the noise, so unlike the woman before her, she wears a heavy coat with a hood. Still, her eyes are wide and serious beneath it—save for the glint of amused appreciation in them. "It's pretty impressive that you came this far, though. I guess that's about what I expect from you."

She reaches out a hand to grasp one of Saber's freezing ones. "Are you still my Servant?"

Slowly, so slowly, Saber pushes herself up on her elbows, looking up at her Master with a red, wet face and soaking hair. "Praetor, you jest with me now?"

"I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do," she says. "You came to rescue me, but it almost seems like I have to rescue you."

"That is an illusion," Saber says. "Everything here is an illusion, mere _noise_ in the face of the truth of our love—!" And she slumps back down into the snow.

"I don't think you make a good snow angel," Hakuno says as she reaches out. "Angels are...boring compared to you." And she gathers her Servant up in both arms and stands once more, carrying her small, fierce body close against her chest.

"Praetor! Put me down right this insist!" Saber struggles weakly. "Allow me to escort you out of this place to the tune of glorious strains of music!"

"It's fine," Hakuno says. "I know how to avoid the monsters."

"That is hardly the point!"

"Saber...hold still." It's a useless thing to ask, as she continues to struggle. But still Hakuno leans down and kisses her Servant's wet hair. Her lips are warm, an antidote to the snow.

Saber wails. "That was unseemly! I should have given you a far more glorious embrace!"

"Maybe tomorrow," Hakuno says, "when it's warm." And brooking no more complaint, she starts on her way for the exit.


End file.
